2023-08-23 19:52:27
Since November 2022, demonstrations have been banned throughout Guinea. On August 13, citizens of Kankan ignored it. They took over the streets of the city, to, they say, “support the actions of Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya”. On August 14, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Alphonse Charles Wright, instructed the Attorney General at the Kankan Court of First Instance to initiate legal proceedings against the initiators of the demonstration. To date, no one has yet been officially prosecuted in this case. Socio-political actors in Nabaya denounce “double standards”.
My fault du gouverneur
On August 15, the city’s governor, Colonel Moussa Condé, issued a mea culpa statement for the pro CNRD demonstrators, arguing that the latter acted out of enthusiasm. “These young people came out to show their gratitude to the authorities of the transition. I ask the national and international authority to accept the forgiveness of my children,” he pleaded. Immediately afterwards, the statement that the General Prosecutor’s Office planned to make to the Kankan Court of Appeal was postponed indefinitely. Ten days later, it’s still radio silence.
An attitude denounced by actors from civil society and the political class. They recall in passing that women from the Rainbow RPG, the former ruling party, had been tried and sentenced for having demanded at the end of May, in the streets of Siguiri and Kankan, the return of their leader Alpha Condé, exiled in Istanbul (Turkey). Rather, in March, young demonstrators against load shedding had suffered the same fate. Mamby Camara, regional coordinator of the Rainbow RPG in Nabaya, joined by Guineenews, deplores that justice “is not fair at all. Not so long ago, young people demonstrated for the current, they were arrested and imprisoned within a week. It’s almost the same scenario for the RPG women who demonstrated in Kankan and Siguiri. They were arrested and sentenced on the pretext that no demonstration is authorized throughout the national territory. Except that these young people, who say they are pro CNRD, also demonstrated in the streets of Kankan. But we have not seen this justice”.
“The Broken Compass”
However, Charles Wright was very clear: “Whether for or against, all unauthorized demonstrations will be subject to legal proceedings”. Sory Sanoh, former prefect of Nzérékoré and Kérouané, remains doubtful. For him, the attitude of justice in Kankan proves that “the compass of the transition is broken”. He saw this inequality with bitterness: “At the RPG, the women wanted to organize a peaceful march. Nine of them were arrested, one of whom was pregnant… It was with a breath of hope that we heard the Minister of Justice tell the prosecutor to prosecute the perpetrators of the last demonstration. But as it is about the pro CNRD, we see that nothing changes”.
Lamine Tounkara, regional coordinator of the NGO Even Rights for all of Kankan, denounces the slowness of the procedure: “It is something that is not acceptable. Litigants or citizens must be treated on the same footing of equality”. The regional coordinator of the House of Associations and NGOs of Guinea (MAOG) in Kankan, Moussa Traoré wonders: “Did this demonstration of support show a desire for violence or disturbance of public order? We can make a connection between the pro CNRD youth movement and the RPG women’s demonstration. The spirit of violence was by no means present, there was no criminal element…”.
Abdoulaye Pellel Bah
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